Editorial: A disappointing Senate appointment

With all due respect to Gov. Deval Patrick's choice to fill the seat left vacant by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death, consider us underwhelmed.

Paul Kirk?

With all due respect to Gov. Deval Patrick's choice to fill the seat left vacant by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death, consider us underwhelmed.

Kirk's qualifications for the U.S. Senate appear to begin and end with his friendship with Kennedy. Kirk has never run for office in Massachusetts and hasn't drawn a public paycheck since leaving Kennedy's staff in 1977. Since then he's been a lawyer, a lobbyist, a campaign consultant, and chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Patrick appears to have made the appointment on the theory that the state's new senator should be a caretaker, not a leader, someone who will steward Kennedy's legacy, not contribute his own ideas and energy to the important issues before the Congress in the critical months ahead. So Patrick apparently gave great weight to the Kennedy family's preferences.

Like everyone else, the Kennedys are entitled to their opinions. But they aren't entitled to dictate who sits in a Senate seat, even for just four months, even a seat occupied by a Kennedy for the last 57 years.

This seat belongs to the people of Massachusetts, and even if the interim appointment was seen as a trophy to cap a distinguished career, it should have been given in recognition of service to the commonwealth, not service to the Kennedy family. We were pulling for former Gov. Michael Dukakis, a man of integrity and independence, who has the national respect and policy expertise to make a contribution even over a brief Senate tenure, but there are other candidates who also have a greater bond to Massachusetts voters than Kirk.

Two other considerations should have argued against Kirk. He is the longest-serving board member of Hartford Financial Services, the parent company of one of the nation's largest insurance companies, drawing more than $250,000 in compensation last year, and worked as a lobbyist for pharmaceutical firms as recently as 2002. With health insurance reform at the top of the Senate's agenda, those conflicts are not the kind of baggage anyone should bring to Congress. It's also a questionable political call for Patrick. The governor is being charged with changing the state's election laws for partisan advantage. Using his new powers to appoint someone whose highest-profile position was chairman of the Democratic Party makes this saga look even more partisan.

We bear no ill-will toward Sen. Kirk; indeed, we expect he'll serve his four-month term with honor and competence. Our disappointment is with Patrick, not Kirk. After all the effort to get him the power to make this appointment, the governor should have used it better.